My other arm.

I didn't get any tattoos until I was over 30.

I got the Maggie one first. When I told her I was going to get it, she said "That's very sweet, but I hope you don't think I'm going to get a 'Rich' tattoo."

I didn't. Different styles, you know?

I also told her that I left room under the "Maggie" to write "left" if she ever took off.

Ha ha. Ha. Yikes!

The daisy, tulip and first four stars were next. The daisy is for my oldest boy (long story), the tulip for my daughter, and one star for each of us. When our youngest came along, I added the sunflower, and one more star.

I'm thinking about what to do next. I've got a six-month rule... I've got to want a tattoo for that long before I get it. That rule has saved me a bunch of times. After witnessing 9/11 first-hand in NYC, for example, I was going to get an enormous eagle across my back. Excellent thought, bad idea.

I realize that I have the least manly tattoos ever. A dove for the Holy Spirit on my right shoulder.... three flowers, a heart, and five stars...

...but that's what makes me so damn hot. It takes a real man to sport a daisy.

Love to all: even you, 2005.

World of Seethe

Something strange is happening to me.

It’s not the gray suddenly sprinkling through my beard.
It’s not the fact that my last few crushes have been on women 15-20 years older than me.
It’s not that I’m launching into yet another economically challenging adventure.

It’s that I no longer enjoy seething over perceived bad behavior of others.

I had a couple things happen this week: an employee was disrespectful and inappropriate, a client was/is seriously delinquent… a couple other things… all of which used to be the kind of thing that I would obsess over: Did I respond correctly? Did I get the last word? Did I WIN?

This isn’t to say that I don’t care about these things. I do. But I care less about the latter two then I ever have before. I even let the employee get the last word in, obnoxious as it was. And I didn’t pull out the Patent-Pending Rich@Championable Written and Verbal BeatDown Stick. I stated my point and that was it.

Bonus: None of these things kept me up at night, and none of ‘em are bugging me too much today.

This is kind of huge for me. My family LOVES to seethe. My father LIVES for it. He stays furious for days… even months at a time. And he can hold a grudge for decades. This is no exaggeration, and it’s sad. My father defines people in two categories: good and evil… and you can go from one to the other instantly and irrevocably.

The thing is: most people aren’t good or evil. It’s not that simple, and thank goodness for that. But what's more important: I seriously doubt anybody out there obsesses over their little contacts with me... so what the hell am I obsessing over, anyway? My energies are better spent on work, family, and annoying the crap of those I actually love.

Love to all. Even you, the guy on the 5:30am train with the super-loud headphones.

Putting it out there.

I hereby declare that I'm going to try and buy a small house in Vermont for my family. I figure it's going to get way too expensive soon, and now is the time.

I have to put my entrepreneurial brain to work on swinging this.

(Insert smoke effect and sizzling noise here.)

Love to all.

3:50am - smart Richie and an unexpected confession.

I put my head down at 7:30pm last night... I wanted to make sure that if I got up super-early to give my youngest his asthma medicine, I wouldn't be walking around looking like I just came off a 72-hour speed run. Smart Richie! Good boy!

Actually, I've never done speed of any kind. Back in my teens and twenties, I was about 379% more energetic than I am now... and I'm pretty damn peppy as it is. Also, I was radically unhealthy: my standing pulse rate at age 20 was 108. And my blood pressure was once measured at 170 over 120. You know the saying "speed kills?" Well, in my case, it would have... right away.

My friends used to give me bong hits for my birthday, just to calm me down.

Drugs I have tried: Mescaline, LSD, THC, Psylocibine (sp?) Mushrooms, Alcohol, Nicotine, Caffeine.

Drugs I have tried in the last 12 years: Alcohol, THC, Nicotine, Caffeine.

Drugs I have tried in the last few years: Caffeine.

Funny: I had no intention of spelling out my drug history in this post. But now you know. Hope we can still be friends.

Love to all. Even you, the folks who might need to give up some things they don't want to give up. Yet.

Politics: What people are forgetting about America.

The beautiful, glorious, and frustrating thing about America is this: you are absolutely required to be uncomfortable.

What I mean is: we are required, as Americans, to accept opinion, lifestyle, and activity that we personally find repugnant, as long as it exists within the bounds of the law.

That is not to say that we shouldn’t express opinions about things, but to be American is to revel in a country which is defined by diversity of opinion and culture.

I’ve got more to say about this, but I’m too tired right now.

Love to all. Even you, you neo-fascist scumbag.

4:10am: Asthma vs. Albuterol

Whenever my youngest has an upper respiratory problem it usually triggers his asthma. So last night, we had to use albuterol (via nebulizer) twice. He's such a trooper, lying there half-awake and keeping the mouthpiece just so, hugging his Teddy Bear.

Poor little guy.

Now that he's back to sleep, what to do? Play Madden 2006? Take the earlier train? Oh, the possibilities!

Love to all.

A real baldness breakthrough.

I used to have the greatest hair ever.

It was super-long, curly, thick, and nearly black. I kept it in lots of different ways: tied above my head in a sumo-knot, box braids, triple pigtails, the Jesus look, and a plain-old pony tail.

In my drumming days, I could do some wicked head-banging moves when I came down hard on the crash cymbals. WHAM! It was an explosion of curls.

Now, though, I'm receding. And thinning. The worst of it is right on top of the back of my head. Angled correctly, my webcam at work becomes a BaldingCam. I try not to do that anymore.

This used to depress me. I'm on Propecia, which has frozen the loss in it's current state, but Rogaine is insanely scary and intense, and I'm not having surgery until they perfect follicle cloning... so I'm stuck as is for the forseeable future.

Sometime over the last month, though I went from being in a weird state of denial and low-grade depression (maybe it I look in the mirror this way I won't be balding) to: hey! I'm a guy with thinning hair! It's just the way it is! I don't know what happened, but it's a mild self-acceptance for which I'm thankful.

It's a breakthrough for me of no small proportion.

So love me. Love my thinning hair. I do. Sort of.

Love to all. Even you, Goldilocks.

Merry Christmas, yo!

A little while ago, Maggie told me that I can't come upstairs until she tells me it's cool to do so... Something present-ish is going on. However, much time has passed, and I think she might have forgotten that I'm in the basement.

So this is a good opportunity for me to say "Merry Christmas" to my Christian pals, and "yo, yo, yo!" to everyone else. For me, this is a season of joyous capitalist splendor and some real thanks for the grace of my life.

Love to all.

I like Jesus AND Presents.

Everyone's freaking out over Christmas.

From Air America to Fox News, Randi Rhodes to Bill O'Reilly, everyone's upset over Christmas... and how the forces of, um, evil, are conspiring to destroy it.

Christmas may be in trouble, but it's not because a statue of the Ten Commandments isn't allowed in a courthouse, or a Christmas tree isn't allowed in a public square. I think it might be because when I go to Church on Christmas, it's absolutely packed. When I go in April, I can get a 2nd row seat, even if I arrive thirty seconds late.

It seems like the O'Reillys of the world are up in arms over symbols, not spirituality.

Me? I separate the two. I LOVE giving presents, and yes, I admit it, I REALLY love getting them. I think it's super, duper fun. That said, I hold Jesus as my spiritual guide. I think it's sweet that we celebrate his birthday. But then again, if Jesus is God... that celebration is misguided. Albeit with the best of intentions.

[Note: I vew the Trinity according to the Catholic catechism... a trio of related-but-distinct beings. Some friends of mine feel that they are *one.* Which would make the whole birthday thing a little silly.]

Love to all. Even you, you last minute shoppers.

Bye bye, Dreamhost.

I've had it.

DreamHost is made up of the nicest bunch of folks to ever run a fairly bad ISP. On the surface, their offerings are fabulous. Lots of disk space, unlimited domains, cheap pricing... but most importantly, they (for a little while) created a successful veneer of People Who Care.

Of course, if they were really that concerned with their users, they would have phone support. Or they would answer questions posted to their support site in a timely manner.

Or they would be able to keep email running for a whole month without major problems or outages.

Shit.

Here's an excerpt of their tech responses: "We understand your dissatisfaction with email recently, and we're really embarassed about it. We're trying so hard to get these machines to work properly, but it seems every time we nail down one problem, another crops up."

So I did some research, consulted some friends/experts, and HostGator came up.

As of today, all 20 of my domains are on HostGator. I'll let you know how it goes. I can say though, that their equipment speed, tech support, and management tools blow the doors off of DreamHost.

I'll keep you posted.

Love to all. Even you, Dreamhost.

Smart little sentence.

I overheard someone say: "It takes a tremendous amount of energy to isolate from the world."

Ain't that the truth.

Love to all. Even you, the ex-husband who thought it would be a good idea to attempt a reunion during the holidays.

My ex-Girlfriend.

So, I called my ex-girlfriend today.

Before anyone thinks "Rich, you fucker!" I think it's important to say: my wife knows. And approves.

You see, this spirtitual journey I'm on involves righting wrongs. Or, at the very least, making amends for harms I've done. There are other ex-girlfriends I'll never talk to again. In fact, I've been told that in most cases, the best way to make amends to an ex is to never, ever, speak to her again.

This case is different.

I dated her for three years. And I loved her tons.

She was a decade my senior, and she was damaged goods. Abused as a child, she had successfully recovered from a variety of addictive disorders. She had intense problems with certain personal and physical interactions. She was smart, beautiful, fierce, troubled, delicate, and pained.

As the child of a mentally ill parent, I was utterly boundaryless. I broke the walls of relationship confidence over and over and over again. When we fought, which was quite often, I would tell everyone. Everything. I would make sure my friends were on my side. I would make sure EVERYONE was on my side. I didn't have the self-confidence or self-understanding to exist inside this couplehood on my own, I had to have the perceived approval of everyone I knew. This was how I was raised: all or nothing. No in between. No gray areas.

She disliked my father. My father hated her. He wouldn't even say the name of a nearby city that had her name in it.

We broke up many, many times. Always, I would sleep with someone else almost immediately. Once it was within two hours.

It was only towards the end that I started to get a glimmer of what a real relationship should be like. It was way too late, and it probably would have never worked under any circumstances... our problems were much too negatively synergistic... but it was the three-year relationship with this woman that led me, eventually, to Maggie.

(And no, Maggie was not the woman I dated immediately after.)

So I want to tell my ex-girlfriend how much I understand the role I played in things. I want to tell her how I regret my behavior. I want to hear if I forgot anything else. If it's right to do so, I want to tell her how much she helped me for years and years af

I want to make amends for the harms I've done, if I can. Not only do I want to do it (although I'm very nervous), but it's required of me.

I left a message on her home machine. We'll see what happens.

Love to all. Even you, the woman who showed me what was wrong, and what was right.

A new kind of "watch your language."

So, I'm playing Halo with my older son. He beats me. I say "Wow. You whipped my tushie!"

Two days later, Maggie tells me that he was really upset by my saying this. He talked to Maggie about it, saying: "If he says that to me when I win, is he thinking that when he wins?" He was actually crying about it.

I feel both bad and flabbergasted: I knew he had been frustrated at losing (in both ping pong and Halo) so I've backed off in both and made sure he beats me at least half the time. This takes more work in ping pong than in Halo, where he's quickly catching up to my slowly-atrophying video game skills.

I had no intention of hurting his feelings. It just never, ever occurred to me that he would reverse and mirror my sentence into thoughts about his performance when I win. It's just way beyond my preprocessing scope. Also, I was kidding. It was supposed to be joking praise.

Anyway... I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this, but it's just another reminder that kids are continuously affected by the words or their parents.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Sneezy.

A birthday haiku for my honey.

Maggie, my sunshine
You tough, gorgeous cutie-pie
Happy, happy day.



Love to all. Even you, the folks who haven't found their own Maggie yet.

What a weird day.

Time since last barf:

Daughter: 15 minutes.
Elder son: 1.5 hours
Wife: 12 hours
Youngest son: 20 hours.

I'm the last man standing... but I've been down for the last 48 with that crazy respiratory thing that makes it so I have to sleep sitting up, on pillows.

The cool thing is: I'm so tired I feel stoned, which is pretty much the only way I get to feel that way.

Love to all. Even you,the lady who tried to speed past the car accident this morning.

Sick math: updated.

50 guests + 1 daughter who threw up 6 times last night + 1 son with diarrhea + 1 wife who isn't feeling well = Rich making lots of phone calls to cancel tonight's holiday party.

Unless everyone makes a miraculous morning recovery, that is.

Love to all. Even you, the folks who didn't RSVP so we don't know who to call.

UPDATE: I've called everyone I know who was coming, or who was on the maybe list. I wonder who'll show up tonight? Yikes.

Massively in love.

There are these moments with my daughter when she becomes this amazing bright light, turns my heart to diamond, and shoots me full of this fantastic energy. It prisms, gloriously, over my entire spirit. It bathes me in rainbows. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before… and I’m a guy who loves Love.

My daughter had her first piano recital last night. She’s six.

She wore a dress that we bought at the American Girl store. Her doll has the same outfit. It’s a velvet, Princess Blue number, and it has two big white pom-poms and a fluffy white collar. At one point (while she waited on stage with the rest of the performers) she caught my eye, smiled, and winked at me.

Boom, boom, boom goes my heart.

When her time came, she sat at the piano, posture perfect and poised. She played in a measured, thoughtful way, and she held her final chord for a full four-count. This was a sublime moment. My six-year-old girl, holding down the last bit of her song for a 1…2…3…4. Rest.

Boom, boom, boom.

Found writing: 1992.

"With sunshine in his coffee and petals in his hair, Richie steps into the shower! His heart is racketing around his chest like an overdriven superball, and his toenails quiver like startled mice....

Oh, oh, the day. Look at the day."

- Me, 1992, scribbled into my college house's "bathroom book"
- Found today, 12/14/2005, during Winter Cleaning.
- Clearly, I was a goofball then, too.

Love to all.

Iran: "Peaceful" nuclear weapons.

So, the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has now reiterated (in public) that he believes the Holocaust was a myth.

The truth here is this: how could someone like this be trusted with nuclear technology? Clearly, he isn't rational. Clearly, if he believes the holocaust didn't happen, he could easily believe that developing nuclear weapons is a "peaceful" action, because, in destroying Israel, it would bring great peace to the region.

Does this sound any crazier than saying that the Holocaust never happened?

I am starting to believe that we should go from Iraq to Iran. I'm starting to believe we should have gone from Afghanistan to Iran, and skipped Iraq. But then again, what would that do, really? Ugh. I just don't know...

Love to all.

$1,000,4000.00

My little company just broke a million dollars in sales for the year. Mind you, that's not profit, not by a longshot. Still, it was my goal, and we hit it. It's amazing how my personality is such that, when things go well, I get kind of freaked out.

Still: Yay, us.

I fully realize that I didn't get sober... didn't accept the grace that turned my life in a new direction... to be a successful entrepreneur. But I do think that making an attempt to be a somewhat better dude has helped me work harder and, sometimes, be nicer. And I guess when you add a little luck, you sometimes get some results.

Whoa.

Love to all. Even you, the deadbeat who took 140 days to pay us.

Why parenting is the hardest job ever.

Two words: immediate effect. Two other words: immediate requirements.

Wait... that's actually three words, in two parts, and... and... oh fuck it.

The difference between parenting and everything else is this: every action you take has immediate and irrevocable impact, both great and small. Every thing you say to a child, and how you say it, redirects their life in development in tiny or huge ways, depending...

Combine this with the fact that you cannot delay children's requirements. They will not and cannot wait for a response (as they get older, sure... but my kids are teeny), and so you have to immediately mitigate irritability/tiredness/angry responses as best you can, without having any of the tactics/comforts of distance, delay, or delegation (hey, three Ds!) that are options in nearly all adult interaction.

So it's a tough fucking job. I'm glad I'm realizing this now, vs. later.

Love to all. Even you, whoever discovered the reason why asparagus make your pee smell.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

So, I'm at Whole Foods on Union Square. There are three lines for 20 registers. The lines are long. There's a "line director" who directs which person from which line goes where. They are supposed to go:

Line 1, then Line 2, Then Line 3.

They went:

Line 1, then 2, then 3, then 2, then 1, 2, 3, 2... etc.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Line Director (who clearly didn't want my math help).

Five things in the last 48 hours.

1) Sledding at the park with my in-laws. My four-year-old was the daredevil, awe-inspiring marvel of the hill.

2) Cleaning up dog poop.

3) Playing the djimbe in church, although the song got cut short because choir went all batshit on the melody, causing the director to shut it down.

4) Cleaning up a huge amount of broken glass from a sink full of dirty dishes.

5) Blogging while in the bathroom, on the potty.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. I'm-being-polite-not-surly Train Rider.

The Holy Spirit vs. Stage Fright.

So, I was about to play drums in Church, and my old-time rock-and-roll panic started to set in. It didn't matter where I was playing, previously: Biker Bar, Pizza Hut, Dive Bar, CBGBs, whatever, I would get totally stiff and panicky... and often couldn't play loosely until the last song, if ever.

This time, though, I took a few minutes and prayed. And I thought to myself, "Dude, how lucky are you to have gotten through what you've gotten through and made to the point where you're being asked to play drums in Church?"

The answer, of course, is very.

Love to all: even you, the wacky kid with the bells.

Reader Question: Am I pro-Palestine?

Hey, someone posted a question to me. How cool is that?

The question was: Am I pro-Palestine?

The answer is: absolutely. I think the Palestinians need and deserve a stable, independent country.

I find it interesting that people focus on Palestine as being "areas of Israel that Israel needs to give up." What about the rest of (and the majority of) Palestine? Palestine was WAY bigger than current-day Israel. Why does everyone demand Israel give up land, but nobody asks Jordan to give up land? How about both?

I think the answer is obvious. Being pro-Palestine and Anti-Israel have become confused. They are not supposed to be paired items, yet for many, they are. Considering that the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians has been largely inflicted by Arabs... the worst by Jordanians... Perhaps Jordan's best method of atonement would be to give up a small amount of land for Palestine.

At this point, it's become clear that Israel is trying to effect serious and peaceful change. Hell, when Ariel Sharon creates a centrist party to facilitate peace... well, that's just amazing.

But is it possible? Has Anti-Israeli sentiment become SO entrenched in the Pro-Palestinian cause that they are now inseperable

If so, all is lost.

Love to all.

Iran's President is evil, but not insane.

Oh my god.

Fresh from the mouth of the evil-ass guy who wants to wipe Israel off the planet, comes the idea that:

1) the Holocaust never happened, and that
2) Israel should be moved to Europe.

The answers of course are:

1) Only the uneducated believe this, and the anti-semitic (too weak of a word, here) espouse this.

2) Yeah, pal: like you lobbied Jordan to give up land for Palestine.

Can you imagine... can you even imagine... what will happen if this country gets nukes? Makes one shudder to think.

Love to all. Even you, the hugely hateful.

The arts are killing me.

Saw the nutcracker at Lincoln Center tonight. It was totally sweet. We didn't take my youngest because we thought it might be too long for him. Apparently, before Maggie left (I was already at work in Manhattan), he said "You're going somewhere without me?"

Heartbreak, heartbreak.

I've got to slow down. I stared getting sick monday night, took Tuesday off from work... but went to Carnegie Hall to hear my unbelievably talented sister-in-law perform... felt a bit better this morning, so like an idiot I went to the gym, did the cardio thing as well some weights... and now, getting back from the city, I'm all sick again.

I've got to let myself operate at 75%... it doesn't have to be 0% or 104% ALL of the time.

Does it?

Love to all. Especially you, the puppy in the doggie hospital.

p.s. I promise to be more coherent after this post.

Morning in paradise. (aimless rambling)

So I'm home sick today. I'm trying to make sure I don't have a repeat of last year, where I got pneumonia once and asthmatic bronchitis three times. No more of that shit for me, please.

Mornings here are utter chaos. It takes forever to get everyone ready for school. My daughter usually becomes upset about something, starts crying, and then will refuse to talk about anything other than how mean I (or whichever adult is in the room) am. My oldest thought it would be a good idea to dump a shovelfull of snow on my youngest... getting him totally soaked just before they left for school... on the day he has an outdoor class trip.

Whee!

Normally, of course, I miss all this: I'm on the 6am train to NYC.

Oh, Did I mention that the Corgi was up all night with, uh, stomach problems?

So now everyone's left, except me and Mimi, the Flat-Coat puppy. I'm sitting in front of our newly decorated Christmas tree, listening to Jina La Bwana, which I'm supposed to play in Church but probably won't due to stage fright. I feel terribly guilty about that, because I said I'd do it... but just the thought of getting up in front of people makes me my chest hammer like crazy.

So, with all this, I feel kind of peaceful and happy. I've got a nice life here, and it's good to take a moment to remember that.

Love to all. Even you, the puppy who *just* passed gas. Ew.

Zube Girl kicks it freestyle.

Zube Girl just wrote an amazing post on what it really means to be pro-choice. I could barely even comment on it. There was no reason to. It was that good.

Love to all.

Four things God made for my daughter.

Written by her.

1. Herself.
2. The sun.
3. Food.
4. Fire alarms.

Love to all.

Do NOT read this post.

Q: What's the only thing more icky than your dog eating her own poop?

A: When she throws it up onto the carpet.



L2A

I am a collections machine.

I run a small company, with 2005 billings of approximately 1 million a year. In fact, this year, that's going to be almost an EXACT figure. Last year, we billed about 600k, so we've grown. And that totally rocks.

The fun thing about owning a small business is the same as the least fun thing about owning a small business: you get to do everything.

Big client decisions? Me.
Shopping for paper clips? Me.
Writing the direct marketing materials? Me.
Checking the phone bill? Me

Hardcore collections? You guessed it. Me.

So I went to a client today, and basically said: "I have to sit here until you give me a check." While I had called and emailed them that I was coming, they never responded. Nonetheless, I managed to walk out of there with a check for $12,000... which is a half of what they owe us, and the full amount that was overdue.

Sheesh.

The client loves our work... they say we do a fabulous job. So why do they make me act like a freakin' thug? Maybe it's because they know I'll keep coming back for more, capitalist dog that I am.

Years ago, when I had really long hair, I could do collections under the guise of being a completely different person. THAT was kind of fun. Alas, I'm a moderately close-cropped papa, now.

Love to all. Even you, the confused office person with the copper hair.